Mad Rosetta - Chapter 65

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Mad Rosetta

Episode 65

Calastaan Sing·Theo Arcanis (3)

『Waaah! I’m ruined, ruined! I got completely played by some dried-up guy who’s lived over ten years without a single love!』

【You’re being loud.】

『That Tabena, that little brat! I was nice to her because she was pretty!』

Taran kept whining resentfully.

What if the god that Selina devoted herself to is in this state too.

Just as I was thinking that, a different solution suddenly came to mind.

【…Wait. Then couldn’t I just transfer you back to Duchess Benitra as a successor or whatever?】

『You? Know your place.』

I really shouldn’t have accepted devotion or anything like that.

『Listen well, you ignorant Imperial. I originally belong only to the princesses of Terkikan. But since I was transferred to you who has no connection, the only way to dwell in the next princess is for you to consume your power.』

【Ah, but I don’t know anything about love, so what am I supposed to do.】

『This guy is talking like a typical immature minor.』

【You don’t even talk like a baby either… To be honest, you look bizarre. Don’t you have any thoughts of changing into a different form?】

『I can’t change. This is my first and last appearance.』

Rosette. Let me tell you one thing – they say there’s a reason for each god’s appearance.

Like how someone gave birth to a child in the middle of the desert, and the youngest among those who died there – that baby – became a god.

Like how the one who cried for a baby that died within minutes of being born was a princess from some passing kingdom.

Everything was said to be natural order.

In the end, I made a compromise with Taran to wander this world looking for someone who fit the criteria of ‘loving,’ and when I opened my eyes again, I was in the Imperial Palace where I had died.

* * *

If I had to name an advantage of becoming a ghost, there was only one.

You get to see and hear a great many things.

For instance, that it was my mother Carina who encouraged self-harm to remove Jeremiah from suspicion even after harming me.

Or that the Emperor, who killed his beloved half-brother and ascended to the throne, lived drowning in alcohol from guilt, then suddenly came to his senses after his first child was born.

“How has Cessia been doing lately?”

“He’s growing up quite admirably. When he wore the clothing Your Majesty the Empress Dowager sent the other day, he was delighted that it fit perfectly.”

That the Empress Dowager, who never lost her dignity and elegance despite being called ruthless, had not only an affair with Marquis Montague, but even had a child between them…

Things like that, you know.

I had never seen such an expression on Carina’s face when I was alive.

Tenderness. Seeing such a thing overflow from Carina, I realized.

【…If Fordicus dies. Will you also show me your collapse.】

That Fordicus Cessia was Carina’s weakness.

After that, I quit being a ghost in the Imperial Palace and decided to stick around the Montague household.

At that time, Fordicus was already in marriage talks with Benitra, and though I had seen the Duke and Duchess at annual events, I had never seen you as a child.

【Now even the great nobles don’t follow proper etiquette…】

I criticized this while following your engagement ceremony with Fordicus.

Despite the custom that no ceremonies other than funerals should be held in the year the Emperor dies, permission was granted before the year ended due to the Empress Dowager’s influence.

It was in such insulting emotions that I first saw you.

“Father, are you going to keep sulking like that?”

Nine-year-old Rosette, you, dressed beautifully in a white dress while pouting your lips sullenly.

True to his reputation as a daughter fool, Duke Benitra was lost in some unknown sense of deprivation, and you threw all sorts of tantrums at him in the waiting room.

Though your eyes resembled Duke Benitra so much that there was no room for excuses, perhaps because you were young, they only sparkled brightly.

【…No wonder he became a fool.】

Yes. Nine-year-old you were certainly pretty and lovable.

But considering he had suddenly proposed to you while you were still in the Duchess’s womb, when I saw you grown to sixteen, you were seriously young and merely cute.

“Rosetta would make a fine bride. The level matches too…”

In contrast, Fordicus’s engagement sentiments toward you were quite promising for an eleven-year-old.

From then on, I thought your eye for men was worthless.

After that, I often followed Fordicus to see you as a child.

The only time I left Fordicus’s side was when I heard news of Duchess Benitra’s death.

【…Your Majesty?】

Perhaps it was because it was the third day since her death.

Though the funeral lasted only a day, Duchess Benitra was watching her young daughter and husband while her body gradually faded.

In such circumstances, it was natural for her to be surprised when I, who had died four years ago, appeared.

【Your Majesty, why do you wander the mortal world in such a form?】

【…Ugh, sob. I don’t know. Everyone, they all just disappear like the Duchess. Only I remain. I don’t even know how to leave.】

Had my anger burst?

The sorrow seemed very great.

Instead of that, I should have listened to the Duchess’s words.

Then I could have known who killed the Duchess and helped you, Rosette.

When I rapidly poured out the resentment I had been holding, the Duchess asked me with complicated eyes.

【Are you perhaps with Lady Taran?】

I quickly nodded at the Duchess’s question.

Since I had no memory of my birth, as far as I could remember, I think I shed all the tears I’d cry in a lifetime that day.

The ability to mourn the death of someone you love.

Due to this power with truly ambiguous criteria, Duchess Benitra, who had entered the birthing chamber at my mother’s request, was said to have faced a crossroads.

– “The child, the child must be born. Only then can Carina’s nose be…”

Should she save her friend who desperately wanted a child, or save the child her friend wanted?

Though no one forced her, Duchess Benitra confessed that she had never been more tormented than at that moment.

The Duchess, who had to contemplate whether to save or not save her friend even as she was dying, ultimately transferred Taran itself to me, who was to be born, wanting to leave it to fate.

If I had died in the birthing chamber, Taran would have been lucky enough to escape due to the unborn caster and return to the Kingdom of Terkikan.

【Your Majesty, I earnestly beseech you. Please watch over our daughter.】

【…No. No, Duchess. Don’t go. Don’t go anywhere after tying me here, don’t go.】

It was natural to resent the Duchess who disappeared so coldly before my eyes.

I couldn’t even live as I wanted, and even in death I felt like a base existence, unable to be free.

Though she was sorry to me until the end, I was resentful of her request to watch over her family, so I didn’t visit Benitra for a while.

Even when I heard that Duke Benitra, who could rightfully be called a lover, had remarried, even when rumors spread that you were an incredibly vicious princess.

I stayed by Fordicus’s side.

【…That’s supposed to be Rosetta?】

Until I met you, Rosette, who had changed so miserably after several years, at the wedding.

Your body, so thin it was like a pauper’s, looked even more unsightly when the wedding dress was custom-made.

Your hollow under-eyes, and your pupils that seemed to live constantly reading others’ faces, unable to focus on one place…

Even your unbelievably foul temper.

Made it impossible to recall that young lady I once knew.

【…It was because of those bastards.】

However, I was able to figure out what had happened in less than a day.

“Lord Cessia. Still, it’s your wedding night… Shouldn’t you go see your sister?”

“…Would you like me to have a wedding night with that woman?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m just worried that bad rumors might spread about you, Lord Cessia. You don’t even understand my feelings…”

It was a bumper crop of disgust.

After that, well, I learned that your nervous breakdown was due to your stepsister’s very systematic bullying.

At some point, I spent more time hovering around you than around the adulterous couple who were always intimate.

“Sob, waaah… Crazy, you idiot. You fool… Why did you have to tear the clothes…”

You would eat your tears and snot while resolving to apologize to the servant, then writhe in guilt.

And you failed every time.

“You damn bitch! You’re the only one who entered my room, and you say you didn’t steal it!”

“Kyaah, sister! Sister, Lord Cessia!”

When you caused a ruckus, honestly it felt refreshing.

Well, the results were quite bad each time though….

As those days continued, my solar plexus kept throbbing with some emotion, whether it was pity or something else.

I felt sorry for you, and pitied you.

【I keep telling you to develop better judgment. Why won’t you listen?】

Watching you sleep curled up on the floor after crying yourself to exhaustion, I felt for the first time in a long while how miserable my situation as a ghost was.

How much your parents loved you.

They boasted so proudly that you would grow up to be the Empire’s most outstanding Princess.

You weren’t someone who should be torn down and deceived by those worse than parasites….

【Hey, Baby Goddess.】

『It’s Taran. Just because you’ve aged a bit, now you’re dropping honorifics, this guy.』

Whenever I had nothing to do and tried to sleep, it was always the desert.

So after meeting Taran for the first time in years, I decided to ask something I really wanted confirmed.

【There’s a woman, and I can see her end approaching soon. Can I save her?】

『What?』

【You said my ability was to twist the death of someone I love. But I’m confused whether it’s love or pity.】

『…This one really was an idiot.』

【….】

『The fact that you’re asking that is enough, so get lost.』

10 years.

I discovered myself loving you 10 years after my death.

But then the problem was that my desire for revenge against Carina, which I had been suppressing all this time, also caught fire.

I wanted to save you but didn’t want to disappear, and I wanted to give those who left us hell a miserable end.

【A covenant…. A covenant should work.】

I was humming happily after learning that I could delay disappearance through a promise between caster and target.

Finally, they made you drink poison.

“These damn, fucking…!”

Even after stumbling and falling several times.

How could I not love you as you somehow tried to live, crawling over the window and dragging yourself across the ground covered in blood?

Though I couldn’t even expect that even you would come to hold pathetic me in your heart.

【What will you do when you get out?】

That moment when I could finally meet your eyes….

Guiltily, I was simply so happy that I just smiled endlessly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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